Innate Ability & Health
Welcome to the Innate Ability & Health Podcast, where we explore how our natural abilities and mindset impact health, success, and quality of life. This podcast dives into the growing connection between mental and physical wellness, emphasizing how beliefs, emotions, and thought patterns shape our reality and well-being.
I'm thrilled to share that I am now collaborating with Natural Heart Doctor and Dr. Jack Wolfson to develop a holistic mental health therapy program specifically designed for cardiovascular patients. This unique approach focuses on achieving better health results through mind-body alignment, addressing underlying stress, trauma, and the emotional factors that influence heart health.
Throughout the series, expect in-depth discussions on the profound impact of our mental state on our health, featuring expert insights, paradigm-shifting research, and real-life success stories. As an author, coach, and speaker, I’ve connected with thousands and am excited to bring this community together to delve deeper, inspire transformation, and support one another.
If these ideas resonate, please subscribe, share, and join our community. Let's embark on this journey to unlock the limitless potential within each of us.
Additionally, those interested in diving deeper can connect with me on various platforms where I regularly share insights, tools, and techniques to help you harness your innate abilities. Let's embark on this transformative journey together.
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email: cm@naturalheartdoctor.com
Innate Ability & Health
Unraveling Chronic Stress: The Hidden Impact on Your Heart and Health
Unlock the secrets behind the silent killer that is chronic stress and discover how it may be wreaking havoc on your heart and overall health. Join me, Ryan, on this enlightening episode of the Innate Ability and Health Podcast, where I promise you’ll gain a fresh perspective on the physiological impacts of stress.
Beyond the quick fixes like yoga and meditation; we’re diving into the science behind how chronic stress activates systems in your body, leading to increased cortisol levels and inflammation, ultimately raising your risk for severe cardiovascular issues.
Could past traumas be silently sabotaging your health?
We explore the intricate link between trauma, stress, and physical well-being, revealing how unresolved past experiences might be influencing your current health struggles.
Understanding these connections is crucial for identifying specific triggers and managing symptoms effectively. I offer guidance on observing these patterns, aiming to empower you to tackle the root causes of your stress, rather than just scratching the surface.
In the face of financial and relationship stress, communication and action are your best allies. We tackle the tough conversations around financial difficulties and interpersonal tensions, advocating for gentle communication and taking personal responsibility to alleviate stress. By addressing these root causes head-on, you can pave the way for a healthier, happier you. Plus, find out how you can lend a hand to others on their stress-relief journey, creating a supportive community focused on achieving optimal health and success together.
Email me at cm@naturalheartdoctor.com for more information.
Disclaimer:
This podcast is for general informational purposes only. It should not be used to self-diagnose, and it is not a substitute for a medical exam, cure, treatment, diagnosis, prescription, or recommendation. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Innate Ability and Health Podcast. My name is Ryan. We're going to be talking about chronic stress and how that affects your heart health and your overall health for that matter. So there have been many, many studies done on this, showing that there is a direct correlation between chronic stress and your health, and there have been many studies done regarding how this affects your heart health. Specifically, I'm going to be referring to a very interesting article called Stress and Cardiovascular Disease, a review. It was actually published by the American Heart Association in circulation in 2021. And they found that chronic stress activated specific parts of the endocrine system and the sympathetic nervous system, which resulted in persistently elevated cortisol levels. So, just to clarify sympathetic nervous system this is your fight or flight response aspect of your nervous system. Cortisol is a hormone that can be raised One person goes into fight or flight and that can lead to complications if it remains out of balance, and your endocrine system, of course, regulates all your different hormones in your body, so when various parts of it get activated needlessly, it can result in disruptions that lead to poor health. Specifically, what's referred to in this article is that these hormonal changes contributed to systemic inflammation. So inflammation throughout the entire body, endothelial dysfunction, increased cardiovascular risk, including hypertension, afib and myocardial infarction.
Speaker 1:So you get an idea that chronic stress is something that you really have to give its proper importance to. It's almost a given in to some people that stress isn't good and it's going to lead to some trouble. But what can you do about it? Right, it has to change. That type of look at it doesn't get the results you need to get in order to resolve the different health problems that can result from chronic stress. So let's start with a little bit of diving into stress. So stress isn't just a mental, emotional thing. People think I'm stressed, it's just how I feel. It's just I get a little run down, depressed, but it's no big deal, I'll deal with it. The truth is that when a person feels those things, when a person knows they're under stress or doesn't know they're under stress but is there's a cascade of physiological changes in the body. What we just talked about with the hormone balance going out is just a part of it.
Speaker 1:When you experience stress, whether that's a tough day at work, relationship challenges, worries about finance, worries about your future, whatever it may be your body goes into this sympathetic state, this fight or flight response, and there's a certain part of your endocrine system that gets activated. That has to do with that fight or flight response, has to do with your adrenals releasing cortisol and getting into that mode, and these systems were used by the body to protect you in emergencies, acute situations where you had to run fast and get the heck out of there or fight for your life or whatever it was. In the modern world, they tend to get activated and stay on because of the nature of the lifestyle we're living. So we have to learn how to handle those and get rid of the reason that they cause poor health results. Now, that said, just to clarify right away, we're not talking about band-aid actions to just figure out how to cope with stress a little better. Or this is another example of if I do yoga twice a week and meditate for 10 minutes every other day, everything's going to be good and I got my stress under control. That is such a disservice for people to think that that's how it works. So I really want to help you today and learn how to get to the root cause of why your body reacts poorly to stress and why it can lead to heart, events that are very detrimental to your overall health and beyond your own well-being. Knowing these things can help you save another life or help you help someone you really care about and you want to ensure that they are doing well. So realize, on the physical level, these high cortisol levels, these endocrine imbalances, lead to very tangible things high blood pressure, increased blood sugar, and we know that high blood sugar has a whole slew of problems that we won't even get into today, beyond heart disease, but definitely contributing to heart disease.
Speaker 1:Of course, we've talked about inflammation and also the strain that it puts on your entire cardiovascular system. This, done for years, can cause a lot of damage and for most people it has been done for years. Let's be real, right. So, first of all, high cortisol you may feel wired. You may not feel wired. It doesn't. Just because you don't feel like you're stressed and wired doesn't mean that you're not experiencing some of the ill effects if there are chronic stress situations in your life. So this whole idea of just blocking it off in some sort of little box or whatever people think they do and that's how you deal with stress, and now it's gone that that's not the way it works, it's let me make a comparison here.
Speaker 1:So person comes in and maybe they're seeing a functional doctor, naturopathic doctor, and they say I know they've got a lot of inflammation in my body because I eat too much sugar and I drink a lot of caffeine and I drink alcohol. But what can you give me that will reduce the inflammation? That's all I want. And, first of all, the functional doctor is not going to do this ever. But what if you just took some, say, turmeric, and that's what you're doing to lower your inflammation? I'm taking this pill. It's going to lower my inflammation and therefore I can eat whatever I want. I continue to have lots of inflammation in my body from having high insulin, from all the sugar I eat and the alcohol that I drink.
Speaker 1:Right, obviously, that's not correct. Obviously that makes no sense to anybody. Especially if you're in this world listening to this podcast, you probably know that that that's not the way it works. The same thing applies for stress. If you say, okay, I have a lot of stress in my life and I'm way behind on things financially, my relationship with my spouse is very strained, my kids don't talk to me that much anymore, but you know what I've decided. It's all good, I've just released it into the universe and I'm fine. Yeah, it's all good. Okay, it's the same thing. You haven't actually handled the stress is still sitting there. You're just deciding that you think it's no longer stressful.
Speaker 1:I can tell you, the numbers in your blood work and the eventual health complications will tell you a very different story, and you have to start realizing that that is the truth. That is the way it works, and then you can go about learning how to do something about it. But the first thing is to, just like they say, you have to admit that there's something going on before you can start handling whatever is going on. This is very true in all sorts of areas, right? So the research done by American Heart Association in this review, it just makes it crystal clear. Not that there aren't a ton of other studies that we couldn't refer to, but since people know about the American Heart Association and they understand articles written based on science and trust, those things, I'm actually bringing that up. So maybe it can give you some more awareness as well. Bringing that up, so maybe it can give you some more awareness as well.
Speaker 1:So managing stress is not optional and managing stress with band-aids is is not enough. You've actually got to dig in and find out what's going on. And, of course, this isn't to discount the fact that you have to be eating really well and you have to be taking care of yourself. You can't be on the standard American diet and you can't be having a lifestyle that is terrible, you know. That doesn't allow you to take care of yourself. Right, these are factors as well, but the aspect of actually getting to the root cause of why that particular type of stress affects you in this way is something you have to handle as well.
Speaker 1:For example, I've worked with people who have super high stress jobs and you'd think that they'd be a mess, but they're really put together and their stress levels are not actually that bad when you measure them. And then I've worked with people who have very low stress lives, but the littlest thing sets them off and the next thing you know they're having palpitations, their digestion's off, they're depressed, all these different things. So there's a reason why people react differently. It's just like with food. It's a reason why some people can have gluten and some people can't. There's a reason why some people can experience certain types of stress and have it not affect them, and another type of stress will definitely affect them. I haven't found anybody who's 100% stress-proof. There's usually a weak chink in the armor, so to speak, and once you found that and you repair that, then the person is really bulletproof as much as we can be in, given how life works.
Speaker 1:So let's dive into this a little bit. Let's go over how we would actually handle addressing stress in a way that isn't just a bandaid cover up. That isn't just okay. I'm going to do some mindfulness techniques and be aware that I'm stressed, and I'm going to exercise, doing restorative yoga and whatnot. Now, mind you, all of these things are totally valid. They're helpful. What's this? We're not saying taking turmeric is bad or it's not helpful, but it isn't enough. It's definitely not. If that's the only thing you're doing, right, do you want to meditate? If you want to go on long walks at sunset, by all means do. They will definitely help. But if you're leading a stressful life and you think that's going to handle it fully, you might not get the results you're looking for. And that's what I'm trying to bring home by going over this.
Speaker 1:When a person is under stress, we know that their body reacts in a certain way. Well, your mind reacts in a certain way as well, and the reason your mind reacts in that way has to do with the way you process things in your life and the way your emotions are hardwired to react in your life. So if you have had certain incidents in your past that were triggering to current stressful events that you're experiencing, then it creates this effect where, when you experience current life, the stress of that current life situation really reacts poorly on your body. Now understand this at the level of trauma. When a person is experiencing something that's traumatic, when they're undergoing a terrible situation, whether it's physical, whether it's the loss of a loved one, whether it's some sort of other emotional situation, maybe not getting ahead quick enough, maybe being under such intense economic strain that it's almost unbearable, whatever it is, when a person's in that trauma state, their ability to think and their ability to process information and react in a sane manner lowers. We all know somebody might say I'm just under stress, that's why I'm not handling things the way I should. It's kind of innately known that that's the way it works.
Speaker 1:But when you dig into it, what you can find is that your body actually identifies and your mind identifies what's going on in those traumatic incidents with possible bad effects in your body. So let's say a person gets hit by a car and during the time they get hit by the car the car actually punctures their lung. They get hit so hard that one of the metal fragments in the car punctures their lung. So thereafter, when they're in life and maybe they drive truck and they are under stress from their job because they're not getting their things done fast enough on their route and they might lose their job, and this whole thing has a lot to do with driving and being around vehicles. And they were in a car accident one time when they had severe damage to their lung. Now their day-to-day stress of life is affecting their physical health very directly because it's hinging on this earlier incident.
Speaker 1:Now they're not usually that obvious. I'm bringing that up so it can be very clear how this might work but that incident of trauma gets identified mentally with damage to the lung and maybe that damage to the lung put a lot of strain on the heart at the time. All those rush of hormones and cortisol and adrenaline really cause some damage in the whole cardiovascular system, right? So, that said, when you're experiencing this stress in present time, it has to do with cars and economics and driving. It really affects the body. Now, another person who never had that type of stress and trauma in their life might be have a driving job and have stress on it and it doesn't affect their health because they don't have that past history, but it's usually not that obvious. There's usually a lot more related incidents that have to be sorted through and how it all fits together has to be worked out. But it can be worked out and when you know how to do that, it's very simple. But the first thing is realizing that there is this direct relation between your health and trauma and stress and how that all works.
Speaker 1:Now, chronic stress is unique in that it keeps that non-optimal state of health that may be sitting on some past thing that happened in your life. Mind you, it doesn't have to be being hit by a car. It could be the loss of someone in your life. It could be a traumatic change in your life. It could be the loss of someone in your life. It could be a traumatic change in your life. It could be a number of things.
Speaker 1:When that chronic stress lines up with these things and they both impact your health, that's when you get a kind of a double down on how it can affect your body and cause inflammation. It doesn't even totally track. How can me having stress at my job cause my body to be inflamed? Like how does? Here's how it works. We just went over it, right. It really is that simple, although when you dig into it and check it out, it can be fairly complicated.
Speaker 1:So, yes, finding ways to alleviate and lessen the stress in the day-to-day life will improve the results. But you see, you haven't eliminated the reason that it's even an issue in the first place. So what you want to do is you want to do both. If you're not able to dive in with somebody, or you're not able to work on that earlier trauma rate at the moment, okay, fine, work on reducing things that you know are triggers for your health. So this is where you can narrow it down a little bit. You can take a look at your current stress and, instead of wondering if you're stressed or not, try to dive into.
Speaker 1:The next level was does this type of stress seem to affect me physically? After that stress, do you feel physically drained? After that stress, does certain parts of your body have pain in them? After that stress, do you feel weakness in certain areas? If that's the case, then those are the specific areas of stress that you really need to work on for improving your health, rather than saying, okay, you just need to lower the stress in your life. No, you need to lower specific areas of stress most importantly. Yes, overall lowering of stress is always a good idea, makes us feel better and it makes us happier, makes us more successful, etc. Etc. But if you're really trying to alleviate a specific physical situation, you have to take it to the next level. In present time, what type of stress seems to cause the body situations? It's very easy to observe. Of course you could do testing, you could work with myself and really dig into these more, but there are ways you can look at it holistically and figure it out a little bit on your own and then start alleviating those areas of stress really as a priority. Don't worry so much about overall stress in your life that can be stressful. I've got to lower my stress. Doctor says it's hurting my heart. What area, let's say. You figure out that it's specifically your job. Okay, good, then you dive in, you go, okay. How can I alleviate the stress in the job? And here's a little secret for you how can I alleviate the stress in the job? And here's a little secret for you Usually, when an area of your life is stressful and you're under stress in that area, it's not just the circumstances of that situation, even if it appears to be, even if you can say, okay, it's completely, because I made $2,000 a month and I need to make $10,000 a month.
Speaker 1:That is a stress, and it may seem that that's all it is, but if you really look into the area that's causing you not to be able to make enough money each month, then you will find that somewhere in there is somebody who's trying to cause you trouble, who's maybe not got your best intentions in mind. And when you find that person and you start realizing what they do and maybe figure out ways to circumnavigate them or just not be around them or get them out of your life if possible, they're really an issue. If it's somebody that you also have a relationship with that you need to maintain or that you want to maintain, then you have to figure out how to deal with that person using communication, and, of course, there's always ways of doing that. Now, another thing to keep in mind is when you are figuring out how to handle people in your life. Don't go for the big, dramatic exit or entrance to handle a situation. Confront them in front of all their peers and demand that they change their ways. That's not gonna get you what you want.
Speaker 1:What you wanna do is figure out a very simple approach that is very light and allows you to start improving your relationship with them and improving the way you interact with them, and then that will snowball in the right direction if you're approaching this correctly. Now I'm giving you some really powerful tools here, but they only work if you really apply them, and sometimes it's harder than you might think to apply these things and get the results you're looking for, but it is very doable. So, just to summarize obviously you want to get to the root cause, and there's a reason. There's a connection between your health and stress, but also you want to get to what's going on in present time. If you can't do that right now, who in your present time environment where you have the most stress that's causing you physical trouble, might be holding you down or causing you to not flourish and prosper.
Speaker 1:And when you found that person or persons, then that situation has to be resolved using communication, but a very gentle approach. Don't try to be dramatic about it as much as you might say oh, I want to be, because I know that this person's really behind all of this and I need to do it Now. All of this said, it's also very, very important that you don't adopt a victim attitude about this. Oh, that person's the cause of the way I feel and my stress. Oh, that situation is the cause of it. Or I wasn't born with the means to handle this type of thing and now I'm having to nobody else. All of these things blame, blame, blame. They're not going to help you alleviate the stress. They may make you feel justified in the moment and raise your spirits a little bit momentarily, but you really have to decide that you're responsible for the situation you're in and you understand that there is something that can be done about it and you want to do something about it and pursue it and use these tools I just went over and get some results and when you've gotten some results, fortify yourself with those results and go for the next level until you get to that point where you know that stress really isn't affecting you.
Speaker 1:I would love to always help people. If you're working with me and you have questions on something I talked about in this episode, feel free to reach out to me. But even if you're not, feel free to reach out and find out what I could do to help you really dig in and find out why stress, even, is an issue for you in the present moment, in your day to day life, in your heart, health, etc. If you have any other questions unrelated, of course, you can always reach out to me as well. Use my email cm at natural heart doctorcom, or follow me on social media at Ryan Mark Kimball, and you can reach out to me any of those ways.
Speaker 1:I always like to help people. That's why I do this, that's why I present this information and if you're someone who wants to start incorporating these to help others, of course, same thing Feel free to reach out to me. I'd love to give you some tools that you can use to help people that may be working with you that you know are undergoing stress, and it's part of what they need to fully get to where they want to be and have that optimal state of health, optimal state of success, optimal state of happiness that we're all reaching for. So thank you very much. I will see you in the next episode of innate ability and health.
